A hearing in federal court discussing Acacia Media Technologies' streaming media patent claims case involving several adult Internet companies has been set for November 7.
The case has been reassigned from Judge Alicemarie Stotler to Judge James Ware, a judge who is said to have experience with patent law issues.
Acacia senior vice president Rob Berman was unavailable for comment before this story went to press, but New Destiny/Homegrown Video chairman Spike Goldberg – whose company is one of several still challenging Acacia's streaming media patent claims – said Ware is a well-enough respected judge, and he was not displeased that Ware would now hear the case and had set a discussion date for this week.
"We are extremely happy to have a new judge," Goldberg said. "We just want our day in court, and we're looking forward to that."
Videosecrets chief Greg Clayman agreed with Goldberg. "This is a very good thing," Clayman said. "We can see this case move forward and start the discovery process. And it can cut the time down that Acacia might have to begin reaching the adult Webmasters."
Industry insiders have said a small number of adult Internet affiliates, and other sites who link to the content providers featuring streaming media, began receiving queries from Acacia in late October. These insiders said that the queries suggested the affiliates or linkers in question could be liable for infringing by association Acacia's controversial streaming media patent claims.
This was a move Acacia had said as early as July they were considering, after announcing they were reaching out to adult verification systems. Berman had said at that time that the issue involved here was "contributory infringement," providing access or linkage to sites Acacia believes infringed directly on the claimed streaming patents.
